As you aware that the owners are anxious to settle the wage revision which is due from 1.11.2017, and to achieve this goal there were communications to the Bank managements time and again. Prior to Nationwide strike exclusively by Bankmen on 28th Feb, 2017, officers’ organisations had submitted the broad summary on 20/02/2017 to IBA. Following the submission, at Chennai, on 19th April, 2017, a meeting was held, in which, Com.Alok Khare, Com. M.A.Srinivasan, Com. V.Ramabhadran , Com.G.Gunasekaran and the undersigned participated in the exercise. It was the past practice to submit the Charter of demands of officers and workmen together, but, on 2nd May, 2017, it was not possible.

In the meanwhile, to fine tune the COD, once again, a meeting was held on 1/06/2017 at INBOC office at MUMBAI, in which Com. Alok Khare, Com. V.Viswanathan and the undersigned participated.

IBA has invited the negotiating unions for a discussion today at IBA office to take the wage talks further. Chairman of the IBA Negotiating Team, Shri.R.K.Thakkar, (UCO) Smt. Usha Ananthasubramanian, (Allahabad Bank), Shri.Prashant Kumar (SBI), Shri.V.G.Kannan, CEO IBA, Shri.Rajkumar Dy.CEO, Shri.K.S.Chauhan Vice President HR & IR, besides the members of HR Dept of IBA. CEO, IBA initiated the proceedings of the meeting and handed over the forum to Chairman, Negotiating Team, for taking the discussion further.

After the exchange of the CODs by Officers and Workmen organisations with IBA and the IBA handing their list of demands, Chairman Negotiating team expressed that the time line mentioned in the earlier meeting should be kept in mind, present health of Industry and also the negotiations for officers shall be restricted upto Scale III. He further placed the periodicity of meeting will be every month. While supplementing the views of IBA, Smt. Usha Ananthasubramanian, emphasised that there should be a forward movement at the conclusion of the every meeting.

Reacting to the observations made, representatives have expressed that the expectations of the workforce should be fully addressed, de-stressing of the workforce should be carried out, health of the industry is not on account of the wage cost, negotiations cannot be restricted upto Scale III, residual issues of last wage revision exercise to be resolved viz., Regulated working hours, Discipline and Appeal Regulations, Accountability Policy, 5 days a week, issues of retirees- record note, officer representatives in the Banks’ boards, comparison of wages with Pay commission, unilateral introduction of service condition by a bank, Number of representatives to be allowed to participate in the negotiation, protection from cyber-crime, and problems encountered by the employees in the Insurance backed hospitalisation scheme etc. The meeting lasted for nearly an hour. The representative of the Officers’ organisations have handed over a letter addressed to Chairman IBA pertaining to the restriction stipulated by IBA.

MANAGEMENT ISSUES:[1] C2C concept to be brought in; [2] Rationalisation of Special Pay carrying posts. [3] Review of the two graduation increments; [4] Transfer and deployment of workmen staff; [5] Simultaneous conduct of departmental and judicial proceedings for workmen; [6] Conducting the departmental proceedings after retirement of workmen; [7] Premature retirement of workmen; [8] Outsourcing of any activity within the RBI guidelines; [9] Review of the automatic movement of officers from Scale I to II and also Scale II to III ; [10] To mark lien on NPS fund of employees to recover loss to the Bank on account of their proved misconduct.

UFBU meet-Post discussion with IBA: Subsequently, the representatives of nine unions met and discussed the issues confronting the Industry as well as the collective approach on the wage revision. The meeting lasted for nearly 90 minutes with the decision to meet on a mutually convenient day for a detailed discussion to chalk out the future course of action to “Save the Banking Industry” and also “halt the attacks on jobs and job Security”.

Awaiting for the forward movement for a collective, consensus and also achievable plan of action.